Son of Heaven
by nothingmoreridiculous
Summary: Higurashi Kagome was only eight years old the first time she saw the Monsters living under her city, but she never forgot them... Living in a Japan tamed by the human King Takemaru, a Japan where youkai are a story to scare children and the King rules absolutely, young Kagome is about to find out the truth about the Labyrinth, and about herself. [Rating may go up]
1. Chapter 1

_Setting the Stage;_

Prologue—

* * *

_Dust and smoke filled the air as the palace fell; fire howled in the kitchen and servants fled like mice from every corner of the doomed estate. In what was once a proud, expansive courtyard a massive silver dog thrashed- ripping up trees and scattering stones with his powerful hind legs and thick tail. The spineless enemy who had launched the attack- under the cover of night and with the help of secret spies- looked on haughtily as the miko powers of his minions did his work for him on the once proud dog-king._

_ A canopy of stars looked down apathetically at the destruction as a silver-haired queen ran from the home, tugging a matching set of silver haired boys behind her. "First Mother!" the smallest of the boys cried out as her clawed hand left red marks on his cubby baby wrist. "Where is mother? We have to find her!" _

_The Queen didn't stop until she reached the tree line, her elfin ears deaf to the child's pleas. Her blood son, tall solemn and almost eight, padded beside her: blessedly silent as they hid in the shadows._

_"There is not time for that, princeling." The queen knelt to speak to her sons. "Your mother is already gone."_

_The small hanyou's eyes filled with stubborn tears. "No! Mamma can't go away! She promised!"_

_Head bowed, the youkai royal sighed gently. "Sometimes promises are impossible to keep…" and then she tugged the child into her embrace to cry in semi-privacy as his human heart broke._

_As her second son cried the queen turned piercing golden eyes on her blood son. "Sesshomaru, you must protect your brother. You are the Son of Heaven, future Emperor, and he is your blood; do not let others bring you down through him- keep him close, do not forget who you are."_

_The words sounded like a goodbye; the prince frowned as his mother transferred the crying halfling into his arms. "You will leave with us. We will go to father's outpost in Haramatsu together; we will be safe there, and we can wait for father to come to us, after he has revived his human lady."_

_She laid a trembling hand on his silver head, and told him softly that she could not leave her mate, could not leave her home. It was the first time Sesshomaru had seen hopelessness in his mother's eyes. It was the last time he ever saw her alive. _

_Miyazu, Empress of Japan and first wife of Emperor Toga, daughter of the Nishi Inu Youkai clan and first born of Lord Inara-Sotona, died that night without a death poem. Her body was ravaged and destroyed without burial, her youki was crushed by miko magic. Toga watched with agony as his First Wife died a painful, honorless death in his name, her body thrown into a pit along with the broken form of Izayoi, his Second Wife, and honorable human love._

_Seeing his beloved wives broke the InuTaisho's spirit; he was ready for death when Takemaru- once an honored human advisor, now revealed to be an honor-less traitor- came to him with sword drawn for the killing blow._

_Takemaru should have just killed the Inu lord and been done with it._

_But the tall, pale human was not satisfied with killing just _this_ youkai king; it was well known that the king had two sons; both qualified to become emperor, though the eldest was especially a danger. The children, Takemaru decided, had to go too._

_That was when everything changed._

_The limp-as-death silver dog sprang to life once more as the sounds of his captured son's cries reached his ears. He struggled to the corner of earth which still glowed from the power of the miko who had attacked him. Takemaru mocked the weakened lord, but did not move to stop him; "What can a crippled dog do to me?"_

_"You!" Takemaru swung on the tall, long-haired woman who stood silently beside his fleet of miko fighters. "You! Earn your worth!"_

_The woman's name was Midoriko. She was a daughter of the Northern miko clan, the most powerful miko clan in Japan. She was not there for Takemaru's political conquest; it burned at her heart to know that she was aiding in this destruction. "All for the balance." She whispered to herself. "All things must be in balance." And it would be._

_The woman stepped forward._

"You will reign without contest for one hundred years.

Neither enemy's weapon, nor assassin's poison shall strike you down."

_Midoriko's eyes began to glow as she chanted; she lifted her shining hands into the air._

"The years shall pass you by, as a stream leaves rocks untouched.

You shall father many strong sons and beautiful daughters, as the trees grow many leaves."

_Takemaru's laugh was triumphant as the prophecy rang out, echoing into the night with eerie finality. "I will be the greatest king of all time!" he shrieked to the heavens, to the kami themselves, "I am the true Son of Heaven! A True Emperor! None are above me!"_

_So enraptured was he by the warm spell swirling around him that Takemaru failed to notice the apparently defeated InuYoukai stagger to his destination and draw both his famous swords—Tessaiga, sword of death, and Tenseiga, sword of life._

"Your sins today will not be forgotten, Takemaru-sama…"

_The twin blades crunched deep into the ground at the same time and thrummed with their wielder's power as the greatest Youkai emperor of all time bowed his head and poured all of his power into the earth. On his back, Sounga was glowing with an unearthly light. _

_Takemaru jerked around as the tone of the prediction changed; "What nonsense do you spew now, woman!?"_

"All trees must lose their leaves; no rock can stand the river's strength, unabated, for all time.

At the end of one hundred years a child, born within the walls of your citadel, will descend and unlock the strengths of your enemy, long forgotten."

_Toga prayed desperately as the bodies of his beloved wives disappeared beneath the shifting earth. Takemaru's warriors and miko began to cry out in confusion as the ground beneath them writhed like a live thing in pain._

_"Father!" the Sons of Heaven cried out in pain and confusion as the earth flowed over them like water and they disappeared into the darkness._

"When the day and night fight together, you shall be defeated, never to rise again."

_Takemaru sputtered as the woman gave a small sigh and crumpled to the ground, dead. Her body swallowed up by the earth as well._

_This was the night the Labyrinth was born._

* * *

This is an old story that I'm posting here for the first time. It might have errors, so sorry in advance.


	2. Chapter 2

One Hundred Peaceful Years

* * *

One hundred years came and went exactly as the prophecy told; it wasn't long before Takemaru had legions of children, all as strong and beautiful as promised; only a few years after the death of Toga was it clear that Midoriko's prediction was sound- Takemaru had not aged a day since the day he overthrew his lord; none could kill Takemaru, as evidenced by the countless failed attempts on his life both on the battlefield and off.

The king quickly became arrogant and foolish; he waged wars without careful planning, knowing he would win; He paid no attention to the traditions of the past, knowing none could overthrow him. He married countless women and took countless more into his bed. Some of the children he fathered he kept others he threw out of his favor with no rhyme or reason.

Takemaru paid little attention to the tedium of establishing order and rule among his new court and he paid even less attention to enforcing it. Gone were the ridged, organized days of Toga and his honored name; Takemaru threw lavish, raucous parties in what was once a well-kept field for training youngsters for honor and glorious battle and built a poorly-kept, expensive, gaudy place over the ruins of Toga's elegant, simplistic old-fashioned stronghold.

There was perhaps one thing, however, that Takemaru did not ignore or forget; Midoriko's last words still rang clear as a bell in his ears every night.

_"Your sins today will not be forgotten, Takemaru-sama._

_All trees must lose their leaves; no rock can stand the river's strength, unabated, for all time._

_At the end of one hundred years a child, born within your palace walls, will descend and unlock the strengths of your enemy, long forgotten."_

Takemaru's first act upon realizing that Midoriko's prediction was entirely accurate was to ban the birth of boys within the walls of his palace; the lord believed that only a male could threaten him- after all, only a male could inherit: only a male could wage war.

If a child was predicted to be male its mother was forced to endure the three-day journey to the Haramatsu outpost for the delivery. If the child was predicted to be a girl, it was welcome to be born within the palace walls- and guaranteed to be killed on the delivery table if it turned out to be a boy instead.

Despite all this, there was a lasting but delicate peace; the mutterings of support for the old ways of Toga were strong and though suppressed, caused much tension between subject and master.

Most of Takemaru's power came from the fact that there was almost no one of the old society and court to advocate for the way things had been, or the crimes committed against the former king; all of Toga's men and loyal servants either died in the final battle for his life or committed seppuku shortly thereafter, so Takemaru had replaced all the military, guards and servants with men and women loyal to him, and willing to make anyone who spoke out too loudly disappear…

Quietly, the elder nobility as well as the village people and tradesmen who remained from the old society were still the sons and daughters of a people loyal to the memory of Lord Toga, and their hearts remained with them.

The main point of contention between lord and citizen however, was not related to Takemaru's lackadaisical policies or related to Toga; however it was related to his _sons_…

The problem was first discovered three years after the death of Toga, during the building of Takemau's palace; the posts dug to support the house were easily erected and everything seemed normal… until they got to the basement.

It quickly became evident that it was impossible to dig more than six feet below the earth on any part of the mountain upon which the fortress was situated; the shovels of any man who tried simply broke on the unyielding ground, as though a spiritual barrier was humming under the surface.

Priests were called, mikos were summoned, wise men were consulted, but no one had any answers for the belligerent new king.

Finally, his massive ego damaged at the idea that he could be defeated by dead earth and irrationally enraged by anything thwarting even the most foolish of his plans, Takemaru ordered the ground destroyed by explosion.

All man-made bombs failed to penetrate the earth, and the combined powers of all his loyal miko and holy men managed only to carve a three foot by three foot hole in the ostentatious dirt, where there should have only been a charred crater.

"_He_ will not be satisfied." The miko and monks grumbled silently at the smoking hole they had created.

Peering despondently into the hole they had created, the advisors were stunned to see a long, winding passage of damp stone curving away into the darkness.

"It's a tunnel! There's a tunnel under here!" cried the wizened advisor who had orchestrated the attempts to blow the ground to pieces. "Boy!" The man turned to his page, "fetch the emperor! Go, go!" It was not what Takemaru had asked for, but perhaps the wondrous discovery may change the tide of the king's red temper.

"s-Sir!" one of Takemaru's soldiers gasped out, drawing the old man's attention back to the hole. "L-Look! It's growing!"

"Fool! That's impossi—" The words died in a strangled gasp as the wall of the underground tunnel did indeed begin to cave and wind into another tunnel, as if it were the roots of a living tree. "But that's impossible…" The old man whispered in awe.

The tunnels were growing, twisting through the ground below Takemaru's new palace—possibly the entire mountain. "How far do you think it goes?" The men muttered to each other, in awe of the very idea of the thing growing beneath their feet.

"For miles probably…" Someone said. "D-do you hear something?"

Those who survived the few minuets that followed couldn't remember what it was they had heard, but had they been able to recall past the trauma and blood loss, they might have been able to tell Takemaru about the small footsteps and flashing golden eyes that preceded the bloody demise of their friends.

As it were, however, the badly shaken king simply ordered a magical grate built over the hole, never to be removed, and made it into a part of his garden covered by a large bush.

No one was ever aware that the bloodthirsty thing in the labyrinth had the InuTaisho's eyes.

* * *

_Some clarity- Inuyasha and Sesshomaru did get swallowed up into the ground. It's a weird idea, but it will all fall into place, I promise. _

_Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read and review. xoxo_


	3. Chapter 3

Just a Girl-

* * *

It was only the fact that she was difficult that caused Higurashi Kagome to be born within the walls of Takemaru's palace, and only the fact that she was a girl that allowed her to live past her first breath.

Higurashi Okime and her husband Gahiro were more than ready to go to Haramatsu to deliver their firstborn- like many parents they didn't want to risk having to hand the baby over to Takemaru's guard if the midwife guessed wrong- but their unborn child kicked so much and made Okime so sick that by the time they were ready to travel to Haramatsu, Okime was not able to handle the three-day trek.

"Leave us, Gahiro!" Okime cried over her very early labor pains. "No matter if we stay or go, one of us will die and if we stay here it will only be this demon child, and not your suffering wife!"

Everyone in the birthing room was shocked when the child was finally pulled, screaming, from the womb.

"It's just a girl." The midwife muttered, clutching the bloody child to her smock.

"I've never heard of a girl causing so much trouble." The midwife's assistant cried, her young eyes going round with surprise. "We thought for sure it had to be a boy."

"Or a youkai." Okime huffed, falling back onto the table. "Or a evil spirit."

The midwife shooed the guards away from the back door, muttering about how inappropriate it was to have men even a stones throw from a birthing room and came back into the chamber with an extra, unneeded thump to her limp, to enunciate her displeasure at Okime's attitude.

"Don't be so sour woman. Those men outside weren't here fer no reason, you know. Had yon child been born a boy like we thought, thy would not be a mother now."

Okime sighed and accepted the bundled baby from the midwife's assistant. "Easy for you to say; you did not have to carry and deliver her."

The midwife chuckled. "Aye, I did not. What will thou name thy babe?"

Okime looked down at the bloody child, now sleeping peacefully, and began to clean her head with a rag dampened for that very purpose. "What would you call her, Kaede? What do you think such a child as this is made for?"

The old midwife eased her old bones onto a stool and smiled at the young mother.

"Ye cannot know what thy child would be; 'tis best to give the child a name, not a label."

Okime huffed. "Well then, why not call her _Kagome_? It means nothing, doesn't it? She can be whomever she wants." The babe shifted in her sleep, as if the weight of the name were disturbing her rest, but didn't wake.

Kaede smiled at the woman and her daughter.

"Aye, 'tis a good name. I have a feeling Kagome isn't done causing trouble just yet."

Kaede had never had a knack for predictions, but the words she uttered the day Higurashi Kagome was born were dead on; the precocious girl child grew like a weed and soon developed a distaste for both the rules and those who made them which nearly drove her mother to distraction.

The girl's father, Gahiro, was Toga's most favored gardener, and held the lofty position of tending the king's personal rock garden twenty-four seven, making him scarce at best around the home. Her mother, Okime, was a woman of respectable descent who worked as the head nanny and tutor for her cousin's husband's family; the Minami family. Thanks to this position Okime and her daughter lived in the elegant Minami home, located in the "nobility" section of Takemaru's stronghold.

Takemaru's capital city- built in the ruins of Toga's capital- was situated high on the side of a mountain and divided up into four main sections; the peasantry, living at the front of the fortress, the skilled workers and craftsmen living behind them and the nobility's estates in the back.

The fourth section, Takemaru's sprawling palace, took up the front of the noble neighborhoods and the back of the middle-class living areas. Naturally, Okime was happy to move up in class and living from her father's home in the middle class area when she took the job at her cousin's home.

Gahiro lived with his wife and child technically, but Takemaru had a certain odd obsession with his gardens, and Gahiro spent many long days in the hot sun working tirelessly to make the gardens perfect for his lord, and thusly was usually too tired to walk home in the darkness, and therefore often slept in his rooms in the palace.

This probably contributed to the fact that Kagome was six when her brother was finally born. She wasn't too interested in the baby, but the clever child did enjoy her parents leaving to Haramatsu for two weeks to "go pick him up", as she was told.

Gahiro and Okime left their daughter with her fraternal grandfather, mostly because they had no other choice; Okime's mother was unable to walk after a nasty fall a few months before, her father was dead, and her brother was tending to their mother. Gahiro had no siblings to speak of and his mother had long ago gone into the void, so with reluctance they called Hiragashi Masaru.

Masaru was a former paint mixer, and it was often whispered snidely that inhaling the fumes of his beautiful pigments for so many years had changed his brain. Kagome loved her slightly crazy grandfather dearly, even from so young an age, and easily turned her back on these comments, and the peanut gallery who said them, but there was no way to deny Masaru was a bit off, no matter how much she loved him.

"Where is my little tree flower?" Masaru cried as he hobbled quickly down the path to his daughter-in-law's rooms at the Minami family residence. His voice carried to the Higurashi parents, who were standing in front of the rooms, strapping their packs onto their horse for the journey, and Kagome, who had been playing a few feet beside them.

"Jiji!" Kagome shrieked joyfully, sprinting across the yard and throwing herself into his strong, withered arms. "You came!"

The old man returned her hug and set his granddaughter back at arm's length to get a good look at her. "Aye, of course I did, little flower. Now, let me look at you! You grow like a tree, child!" Kagome giggled. "Jiji! I can't be a tree and a flower too!"

"You can if you're a sakura tree!" Her father called cheerfully as he slung packs over the horse's hips. Gahiro loved his child and was very sad that he had to be away from his family so often; he was delighted to have two weeks with his wife uninterrupted by work and- if the child she carried was a boy, as Kaede predicted- possibly a future apprentice and heir.

"Make sure things don't get too wild, Masaru-san." Okime warned tiredly from her place on her husband's horse. Child bearing was very hard on Okime, and she was unaffected by her husband's happy mood. "That little flower has a mind of her own."

Jiji chuckled sagely. "My dear, those are the best kind."

Masaru was surprisingly sprightly for an old man, but he was unable to keep up with the energy of a six year old; by the night of the first day the elder was plopped out on the dinner cushions gasping for air.

"Heavens above, child, and monsters below! How have the kami given so much energy to the young, who squander it so readily! They should take pity on the old bones of one such as me!"

Kagome skipped to Masaru's side and peered worriedly at his face. "Jiji, why do you talk about monsters all the time? Daddy and mother say they aren't real."

Masaru's old face pinched. "Is that what they told you?"

Kagome nodded; "well, aren't they?"

Masaru turned away quickly. "You should always mind your parents, dear. Now, how about some tea?"

Kagome watched him go with wide eyes, her young mind not quite reaching around the implications of what had transpired. "But… that's not an answer…"


	4. Chapter 4 (short)

Digression #1; Dead Things

* * *

"Papa'll _know_!" Three year old Kiyoru wailed at the top of his lungs as Kagome half-dragged him across the weed-covered field which was once a place to hold mock battles for young youkai and human boys in training to be warriors. The field had been unused since Toga's death and had since fallen into disrepair; getting across it was tough, but Kagome was one determined six-year-old.

"Kago! I wanna go home!" Kiyoru whined again. "Who _cares_ what big brudder says?!"

"I do!" Kagome cried. "He thinks he's so _grown up_?! We're gonna show him up! He's only _older_ by a _year_!"Still stung by her elder cousin's taunting, Kagome was deaf to the toddler's pleas. "We'll prove that ghosts aren't real!"

Kiyoru drew closer to his cousin and sniffled. "But Kago, I don' wanna see a… a… _dead thing_!"

"Don' be a baby!" As she walked Kagome drew herself up to her full nearly-four-foot height and threw her shoulders back to make her statement more impressive. "There is nothin' dead down her—"

_Crack_.

The cousins stopped dead and looked at each other with wide saucer eyes. "K-Kago… you stepped on somethin'… I bet it's a…a… _dead thing_!"

Kagome scoffed, but it was weak and fearful. "I-I told you, Kiyoru, there's nothin' dead down…" before she could finish her statement a rabbit bolted from a nearby hole, spooked by the noise. The thing shot right between the girl and boy and they both ran screaming, the unexpected feeling of something touching them twisting into monsters in their over-active imaginations.

To save face Kagome later claimed her elder cousin, Hidehiro, was lying about seeing dead things in the old field ("We didn't _see_ nothin'" She later insisted), but she never went back to the field, and so the cracked, rusted sheath half buried in the dirt was never recovered.

* * *

Just some semi-realted (possibly important?) waff. It is, as you can see, in the Sons universe, but not a full chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

Expiration Dates;

* * *

Okime Higurashi bore a son at Haramatsu four days after her daughter's run in with the _dead things_. Both mother and child lived through the night, but it was far from an easy birth- the second child was possibly even harder to bring into life than the first, and the couple left Haramatsu with warnings against attempting to have another child ringing in their ears.

They named the boy Souta, after an ancestor on Gahiro's side, and praised every good spirit they could think of that they had managed to conceive a healthy son. Higurashi Souta was not born with his sister's striking blue eyes, but he was a sturdy boy who grew quickly and immediately began to fulfill all his father's dreams of having a son.

Kagome grew to be an intelligent, witty girl who soon became too much for Okime to handle coupled with the addition of her small baby brother and the fact that her mother was in charge of teaching history, reading, numbers and manners to her cousin's rowdy bunch of children.

When Kagome was eight it was decided that she should have some responsibility in her life, in the hopes it would calm her down a bit.

The ebony-haired girl was placed in charge of her cousin's third child, two year old Minami Rin. Rin's elder brothers, Minami Hidehiro, who was nine and five year old Minami Kiyoru were rowdy and always fighting with each other. At lady Minami's behest Okime used Kagome to separate Rin from the boys in hopes that she could learn to be a proper gentle lady, free from their bad example.

Rin was born three days in to Takemaru's one hundredth year as emperor of Japan; the world Rin lived in was different from the one Kagome had experienced, born on Takemaru's ninety-second year as king. Adults were anxious and serious, warriors were constantly battle-ready and tense, and military drills of some kind became a daily occurrence.

Kagome's charge was a quiet, solemn child with little to say to anyone; Kagome accredited this to the atmosphere in her household, since both her parents had been adamant supporters of Takemaru all their lives and now feared that since his one hundred years of guaranteed peace had expired it would all come crashing down.

Like most adults Okime had always downplayed any issue involving the king, including the risk of disaster now that the one hundred years was over, insisting that Rin was quiet because of the foolish Haramatsu midwife's apprentice, who had let the babe slip from her fingers and hit the table shortly after she was born. "The poor dear just isn't right in the head, sweetling."

But Kagome refused to believe it.

Despite being six years apart, Kagome was close to Rin- closer than she was to even her own brother, Souta, who was constantly at his father's side or in his mother's arms being crooned over as the next heir of the tiny Higurashi wealth and almost meaningless name.

"They love him more." Kagome explained to Rin one day. The two year old blinked seriously at the sad admission, but said nothing. "It's because I'm only a girl- like you. They want me to be good too, but our family is too small to waste time on a child who can't inherit."

Rin put her small, chubby hand on Kagome's forehead and the babysitter sighed. "You're lucky you're family is big and rich, Rin-chan."

* * *

"Nothing has changed! _Do you hear me?!_ _Nothing_!" Takemaru was red-faced as he hurled the ink stone across the meeting room. The aged faces of his 'loyal' advisors were drawn into deep lines, but they said nothing at the display.

"This is treason! To suggest such a thing! I should order you all commit seppuku in the courtyard right now!"

"Please, my lord." An elderly general scooted back from the table to bow formally to his liege before straightening slowly and returning to his place with a groan of pain.

"If it pleases you, my lord, if it will allow you to open your ears to our pleas, I will gladly commit seppuku right now, if you will give permission; I am old and in pain and well prepared to enter the void. However, I can never die in peace knowing my lord is in danger; the wolf Youkai, the Northern lords of one hundred years ago, are still in place and they are gathering their native wolf pack to them, amassing power…"

"And the wolf tribes are divided! They feud _constantly_! How can a pack of mangy dogs who won't stop chasing their own tails be any threat to me?!"

The elder bowed his head. "Yes, my lord, but there is whispers that they may be uniting under one named Koga… a wolf who believes that these lands are his by right, through his species' familial connections with that of the Inu Youkai."

"_I_ am lord here! He has no connections to me! They must respect the rule of the emperor." Takemaru was on his feet now, but his voice was dangerously low; speaking of the last emperor in court was strictly forbidden.

But the elder pressed on, determined; "Yes, my liege. But wolf Youkai do not acknowledge human titles and laws, as all Youkai have not for over one hundred years." He didn't say them, but the words hung in the air; _since you killed the only sympathetic Youkai lord in history- the only one who had the power to unite us._

It was an unavoidable truth; Takemaru was not the caliber of king Toga had been, and they had helped him usurp the rightful ruler.

The Council looked away to hide their shame.

Takemaru fumed, oblivious to his men's shame. "Well, what should I do, then? Every day I make more plans, steeper concessions; more and more of my gold goes to the army, _when we have never before needed one_- I am unable to live and act as an emperor should already! Every day you tell me that what I do is not working, that the forces against my just rule grow stronger, more organized- what _more_ can my faithless subjects ask for?!"

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as the council members cringed at their leader's loss of composure and Takemaru guzzled some sake to calm himself.

"A weapon," the elder announced quietly, but quite seriously.

"A weapon," The tiny sake cup hit the table with a sharp _clack_; Takemaru's gaze was flat. "I already have many weapons, Tahiro, in case you hadn't noticed."

Tahiro glanced around, but the other council member's heads were down, faces closed off.

Understanding that he had just been elected spokesman, Tahiro nodded and cleared his throat. "Yes, my lord, you do. But this must be a special weapon- one that brings it all into balance, one which makes all your enemies fear you once more; something to take the place of the prophecy."

"And _where_ do you suggest I get a weapon such as this?" Takemaru sneered.

The council exchanged wary glances; the king was a known Youkai-hater, and he would not like this plan.

"Well, sire, it is told by the elders that there is a mountain in the wilderness, shrouded in acidic fog where there is a massive skull set into the earth. Inside this skull there lives a Youkai of immense sword making capability…"

Takemaru was getting desperate; the situations in the North and among his own people were getting worse. He had been able to contact many magical weapons makers- he had even listened to his advisors and sent an emissary to the old Youkai who had forged Toga's swords, but it had all been for naught.

The man- sent in secret, as mentioning Lord Toga was forbidden in the palace- barely made it back alive, and only lived long enough to deliver old Totosai's message. It was frustratingly similar with all the other responses Takemaru had gotten;

_"If you can get me material worthy of such a sword, I can forge it. You have two weeks."_

The king crumpled the note in one hand and sat back with a sigh. "Old fool…"

Then he smoothed the washi paper out again and re-read the damming words.

It was quite a predicament; where to get such material? Most Youkai weapons were forged out of some part of the wielder's body; a fang or claw… but Takemaru was no Youkai, and he did not know any who would be willing to help him get such material. No Youkai were allowed in the new city at all since Takemaru had taken over, and he had allowed his alliances with Youkai leaders to dwindle and die out of arrogance and hatred.

Takemaru had only been close to one or two Youkai, even as the head general of Toga's human forces, and all of those allies had either died the night Toga fell or turned their backs on Takemaru's quest for power.

"Damned _hypocrites_," Takemaru sneered; Youkai ascended to power via bloodshed and death all the time, though they seldom used stealth and secrets. It was only because Takemaru was human that the Youkai refused to acknowledge his claim to Toga's throne.

"Where do I find a Youkai who cannot avoid giving me what I want?" Takemaru mused, toying with the ivory block he used to stamp his seal. "I have no alliances, no friends… I know no Youkai who can be easily killed or subdued… the last powerful Youkai I had contact with was Toga…"

Takemaru froze as inspiration washed over him; his eyes sparked with evil intent.

"_Toga…"_


End file.
